Vulnerabilities > CVE-2024-42082 - Allocation of Resources Without Limits or Throttling vulnerability in Linux Kernel

047910
CVSS 5.5 - MEDIUM
Attack vector
LOCAL
Attack complexity
LOW
Privileges required
LOW
Confidentiality impact
NONE
Integrity impact
NONE
Availability impact
HIGH
local
low complexity
linux
CWE-770
NVD
Published: 2024-07-29
Updated: 2024-11-21

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: xdp: Remove WARN() from __xdp_reg_mem_model() syzkaller reports a warning in __xdp_reg_mem_model(). The warning occurs only if __mem_id_init_hash_table() returns an error. It returns the error in two cases: 1. memory allocation fails; 2. rhashtable_init() fails when some fields of rhashtable_params struct are not initialized properly. The second case cannot happen since there is a static const rhashtable_params struct with valid fields. So, warning is only triggered when there is a problem with memory allocation. Thus, there is no sense in using WARN() to handle this error and it can be safely removed. WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 5065 at net/core/xdp.c:299 __xdp_reg_mem_model+0x2d9/0x650 net/core/xdp.c:299 CPU: 0 PID: 5065 Comm: syz-executor883 Not tainted 6.8.0-syzkaller-05271-gf99c5f563c17 #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 03/27/2024 RIP: 0010:__xdp_reg_mem_model+0x2d9/0x650 net/core/xdp.c:299 Call Trace: xdp_reg_mem_model+0x22/0x40 net/core/xdp.c:344 xdp_test_run_setup net/bpf/test_run.c:188 [inline] bpf_test_run_xdp_live+0x365/0x1e90 net/bpf/test_run.c:377 bpf_prog_test_run_xdp+0x813/0x11b0 net/bpf/test_run.c:1267 bpf_prog_test_run+0x33a/0x3b0 kernel/bpf/syscall.c:4240 __sys_bpf+0x48d/0x810 kernel/bpf/syscall.c:5649 __do_sys_bpf kernel/bpf/syscall.c:5738 [inline] __se_sys_bpf kernel/bpf/syscall.c:5736 [inline] __x64_sys_bpf+0x7c/0x90 kernel/bpf/syscall.c:5736 do_syscall_64+0xfb/0x240 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x6d/0x75 Found by Linux Verification Center (linuxtesting.org) with syzkaller.

Vulnerable Configurations

Part Description Count
OS
Linux
1996

Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)

Common Attack Pattern Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC)

  • Locate and Exploit Test APIs
    An attacker exploits a sample, demonstration, or test API that is insecure by default and should not be resident on production systems. Some applications include APIs that are intended to allow an administrator to test and refine their domain. These APIs should usually be disabled once a system enters a production environment. Testing APIs may expose a great deal of diagnostic information intended to aid an administrator, but which can also be used by an attacker to further refine their attack. Moreover, testing APIs may not have adequate security controls or may not have undergone rigorous testing since they were not intended for use in production environments. As such, they may have many flaws and vulnerabilities that would allow an attacker to severely disrupt a target.
  • Flooding
    An attacker consumes the resources of a target by rapidly engaging in a large number of interactions with the target. This type of attack generally exposes a weakness in rate limiting or flow control in management of interactions. Since each request consumes some of the target's resources, if a sufficiently large number of requests must be processed at the same time then the target's resources can be exhausted. The degree to which the attack is successful depends upon the volume of requests in relation to the amount of the resource the target has access to, and other mitigating circumstances such as the target's ability to shift load or acquired additional resources to deal with the depletion. The more protected the resource and the greater the quantity of it that must be consumed, the more resources the attacker may need to have at their disposal. A typical TCP/IP flooding attack is a Distributed Denial-of-Service attack where many machines simultaneously make a large number of requests to a target. Against a target with strong defenses and a large pool of resources, many tens of thousands of attacking machines may be required. When successful this attack prevents legitimate users from accessing the service and can cause the target to crash. This attack differs from resource depletion through leaks or allocations in that the latter attacks do not rely on the volume of requests made to the target but instead focus on manipulation of the target's operations. The key factor in a flooding attack is the number of requests the attacker can make in a given period of time. The greater this number, the more likely an attack is to succeed against a given target.
  • Excessive Allocation
    An attacker causes the target to allocate excessive resources to servicing the attackers' request, thereby reducing the resources available for legitimate services and degrading or denying services. Usually, this attack focuses on memory allocation, but any finite resource on the target could be the attacked, including bandwidth, processing cycles, or other resources. This attack does not attempt to force this allocation through a large number of requests (that would be Resource Depletion through Flooding) but instead uses one or a small number of requests that are carefully formatted to force the target to allocate excessive resources to service this request(s). Often this attack takes advantage of a bug in the target to cause the target to allocate resources vastly beyond what would be needed for a normal request. For example, using an Integer Attack, the attacker could cause a variable that controls allocation for a request to hold an excessively large value. Excessive allocation of resources can render a service degraded or unavailable to legitimate users and can even lead to crashing of the target.
  • XML Ping of the Death
    An attacker initiates a resource depletion attack where a large number of small XML messages are delivered at a sufficiently rapid rate to cause a denial of service or crash of the target. Transactions such as repetitive SOAP transactions can deplete resources faster than a simple flooding attack because of the additional resources used by the SOAP protocol and the resources necessary to process SOAP messages. The transactions used are immaterial as long as they cause resource utilization on the target. In other words, this is a normal flooding attack augmented by using messages that will require extra processing on the target.
  • XML Entity Expansion
    An attacker submits an XML document to a target application where the XML document uses nested entity expansion to produce an excessively large output XML. XML allows the definition of macro-like structures that can be used to simplify the creation of complex structures. However, this capability can be abused to create excessive demands on a processor's CPU and memory. A small number of nested expansions can result in an exponential growth in demands on memory.

References